On My Back Door-Step # 11

Fireweed Turning Color (#11)

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Watercolor on paper, 11in x 15in
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In summertime, the fireweed plant has the-pinkest-of-pink blossoms that shimmer and are practically florescent in the sunlight, along with a subtle, sturdy green color for its leaves and stems.
But in the autumn, it is the foliage of the fireweed that has the showiest display, in fiery (of course) reds, oranges, yellows, and various shades of chartreuse.
In painting #10, I was unhappy with the mixes I had achieved with a limited palette of three colors, prussian blue, cadmium yellow medium and rose red quinacridone. Today, I added viridian and cadmium red medium to the lineup, and I substituted hansa yellow lemon for the cadmium yellow. Well, what a difference!
Today was a sunny fall day and the light kept moving through the trees, changing the intensities of the colors on the ground even as I was watching them brighten and fade.
Nevertheless, I am happy with what I recorded today. Never satisfied, but happy!
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On My Back Door-Step #10

Fireweed Blossoms (#10)

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Watercolor on paper 11in x 15in

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For many years, I have worked with a limited palette of colors: a bright yellow, a red usually in the pink register, and a blue of some sort. Since I started these back door-step paintings, I have been using my outdoor sketching supplies, which include a portable box of a dozen pans of watercolor, two yellows, two reds, two blues, two greens, two browns, plus a black and a white.

Well, it's starting to get chilly outside, so on some days for this project I confess, I am actually doing the painting indoors once the drawing is established. And yes, I am noticing a difference in how I am handling the paint.

Indoors, I take more time in applying the color, and today, when I used tube color instead of my trusty little paint box, I fell back into my comfort zone of the limited palette of three colors. Honest! I didn't mean to! I did take out five tubes, but I only squeezed paint out of three of them, cadmium yellow medium, rose red quinacridone and prussian blue. So, there I was working with a limited palette again.

And what did I learn? I found I was unhappy with the approximation of the colors I was mixing, and with how distant those hues were from what I knew I had seen. In working outdoors, I have learned to perceive more of the colors that my eyes can distinguish.

I want to go back outside and paint this image again.

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Art Every Day Month - November 14

Layers - Graded Washes

Graded washes create areas of paint that move gradually from dark to light, or from one color to another.


In today's painting, I applied an underpainting of permanent yellow with a touch of alizarin crimson.
After that had dried, I painted the blocks in graded washes of either yellow or alizarin, and after that had dried, I painted graded washes of prussian blue, going in a different direction.

In some places, the new color pooled or bled into already painted areas that were still damp.
I didn't really mind - that saved me from having a painting that would have looked like 16 industrial paint chips from the hardware store!


Graded washes are among the hardest techniques to carry off well in watercolor, and they are also among the most useful techniques to know how to do.
I will have the chance to do more of them during this Art Every Day for the Month of November challenge.

Art Every Day Month - November 13

Flat Wash, Overpaint and Scrub

I began this painting with an overall flat wash of viridian, covering the entire surface of the quarter-sheet of paper.
A flat wash requires a steady hand and good timing in applying the wet paint: excellent practice for me!


After the wash was thoroughly dry, I started painting the sequence of today's 16 blocks with varying dilutions of prussian blue, using a wet brush to remove the underpainting or simply painting over it.


I discovered that a sufficiently wet brush and enough pressure would remove two layers of dried paint, so there are several areas where I have scrubbed back to the white surface.

This effect is similar to Day 6 in Layers: Transparent Washes, but this time it's not an accident, and the brushstrokes make it a lot more lively.

Art Every Day Month - November 6

Layers: Transparent Washes

Today for my "Art Every Day for the Month of November" challenge I laid down two washes of transparent color – viridian and prussian blue – with deliberate and accidental movements of paint on the paper, and with varying degrees of wetness and dry brushing.

What did I get? Lovely delicate marbled effects, abrupt patterning, and a jewel-like quality in the depth of color. See-through textures, mottled tones, and an underpainting that dissolved as the next layer went over it.

I also got a sense that however controlled I might want to be in applying it, the paint will create its own random characteristics as it dries on the paper. I just need to wait to see what it will look like.

And I needed to remind myself not to judge whether or not I like the effect until the painting has finished itself.

Art Every Day Month - November 3

Ritual vs. Routine

The trick to staying with a routine is doing the thing regularly.

Doing the Art Every Day for the month of November project - or any other daily painting project - may be an artificial way to initiate a routine, but it works... as long as every day I do the painting (and the photography and blogging to get it online).

I hope for the time when my acceptance of this routine - taping one quarter sheet of watercolor paper to a board, getting the water and paintbrushes ready, selecting the colors, and taking a deep breath before I start - becomes a ritual for starting painting and not just a routine any more.

That's when I will have internalized the action of the daily painting and made it part of me, not simply added it to my daily list of activities.